photo by Brandi Hagen/Albert Lea Tribune

John McNealy, left, shakes hands with Mark Gauley as he gets off the bus that brought the 1133 Transportation Company soldiers home to Mason City, Iowa from Fort McCoy, Wis. Wednesday. The company returned to the states Friday October 23 and remained there until the final trip home was made Wednesday.

Soldiers return from Iraq

Brandi Hagen, for the Tribune

Published Friday, November 6, 2009

After a year of active duty, Iowa National Guard soldiers were welcomed home Oct. 28 at the North Iowa Fairgrounds in Mason City.

The soldiers returned to the states on Oct. 23 and remained in Fort McCoy, Wis., until Oct. 28 for out-processing.

From Fort McCoy, a bus brought them on a 3 1/2-hour ride to Mason City.

Thanks to technology, soldiers had phone communication with families waiting for them in Mason City the entire ride. The crowd knew when the company was leaving Wisconsin, when they stopped for a break in Rochester and when they crossed the Iowa-Minnesota border and when the buses finally exited Interstate 35 by Mason City.

At the fairgrounds in the All Seasons Building, family and friends were waiting to welcome the company home. Soldiers were welcomed with applause, whistling, tears and cries of “Daddy, Daddy!”

This was the company’s second activation since the war in Iraq started. The 1133rd Transportation Company left for war last October as part of a larger deployment. They were combined with the 1168 Transportation Company from other parts of Iowa in order to form the 3368 Heavy Equipment Transportation Company.

For the first part of their deployment, they were sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, for more training. Just before Christmas, the first aircraft landed in Kuwait with members of the 3368. The rest of the company arrived in Kuwait on Christmas Day.

While deployed, the 3368 traveled almost 3 million miles and completed more than 300 missions.

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